With no tourist board ranking, few frills and eight bedrooms that are empty
for months at a time, it appears an unlikely destination for the rich and
famous.

But the Garvault Hotel in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands has still made it onto a select list of the world’s best holiday destinations to get away from it all.

Despite charging only £65 per night for dinner, bed and breakfast, it has been named by US magazine Forbes, a bible for wealthy Americans, as one of the world’s top ten remote hotels.

It is ranked alongside luxury accommodation at a Mexican cave retreat, an undersea pod in Florida and a lodge in the Alaskan tundra as offering the ultimate in holiday isolation.

The Garvault is in Sutherland, more than a two-hour drive north from Inverness, and sits in 40-acre grounds between three shooting estates.

Monte Burke, of Forbes website, who compiled the list, said: “There is literally nothing for miles. Guests can trek over the Highlands, go salmon and trout fishing or bird-watch, then get warmed up over a traditional peat fire.

“Why a remote hotel? In this super-connected world, vacations often just become mobile work offices. At these remote hotels, especially if you build in time for actually getting there and back, you really can find that restorative solitude.

“And while some of these hotels are pretty pricey, going remote doesn’t always mean breaking the bank. The Garvault will put you back £130 per night for a couple.”

Graham and Doreen Bentham, who have owned the hotel for the past seven years, were surprised but delighted by its new-found international fame.

The modest hotel offers three twin rooms, three singles, one double and one family, all en suite. Its menu comprises hearty, traditional fare, such as roast venison, haggis, tatties and neeps and jam roly-poly with custard.

Mr Bentham, a 61-year-old former engineer from Nottinghamshire, said they bought the business as a “change of lifestyle” and it was in the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote hotel on the British mainland.

“We are not AA or even Scottish Tourist Board rated. We have thought about it, but we haven’t pursued it as yet,” he said.

“In the winter, two or three months can pass without a visitor depending on the weather. The bulk of our business is during the fishing season – from Easter to October we always have fishermen, walkers and stalkers.

“But last winter we were cut off, snowed in for more than two weeks. If it wasn’t for the neighbours’ JCB, it could have been months.”

The couple admit it is “very difficult” to find staff, adding there are fewer than 100 people living within 25 miles of the hotel and the nearest village, Kinbrace, is eight miles away.

Other exotic locations in Forbes’ top ten include the £840-per-night Winterlake Lodge in Alaska, which requires a seaplane flight to reach.

Visitors require a charter flight and river boat to get to the Bloomfield Lodge, near the Great Barrier Reef in the heart of the Australian rainforest.

Meanwhile, Kokopelli’s Cave in Farmington, New Mexico, is 70ft undergrounds and can only be reached by ladder, while rooms at the Jules Undersea Lodge in Florida require guests to scuba-dive 21ft to the former underwater laboratory.